


If Love Is Surrender, Then Whose War Is It Anyway?

by notalone91



Series: Drabble Shuffle [1]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst, Break Up, CALLIE STANDING UP FOR HERSELF, Canonical Character Death, Coping, F/F, Past Character Death, also I might have cheated and listened to the song on loop a couple of times but eh, but more importantly, concerning canon character death, fight, namely Mark Sloan, or better yet not coping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 01:01:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3630828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalone91/pseuds/notalone91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[If you think that it's so damn easy, then what do you need me for?  Just look at the state of you, babe.  Snap out of it.  You're not listening to this.  And just for once could you let me finish a sentence? - Psychobabble, Frou Frou]</p>
<p>What I imagined the breaking point for Callie and Arizona would be.  A conversation that needed to happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Love Is Surrender, Then Whose War Is It Anyway?

 It happened pretty frequently. Callie would tell Sofia to pick out a video to watch with lunch. If it wasn’t a Doc McStuffins video, it was the wedding video. On those days, after she put Sofia down for her nap, she would run the shower and sob for a while, before getting in and cleaning herself up so that Arizona wouldn’t see.   
    That’s not how it worked out today. Today, Arizona’s surgeries all went quicker than she’d planned, so she made it home almost an hour earlier than Callie expected her to. After calling out for her a few times, she heard the water running and figured she hadn’t heard her because her head was under the water. She shrugged off her jacket and opened the door. “Callie, I’m home,” she called in, peeking around the door and seeing her wife on the floor. “What’s the matter?” She asked, alarmed.  
    “Nothing,” she replied, wiping the tears away and standing up fast. “Nothing, nothing, I’m okay.” She affirmed, reaching in to the shower to see if the water was still hot. Had she been in there that long?  
    Arizona took another step into the bathroom and closed the door, pulling her wife into a hug. “Callie, you were sitting on the bathroom floor crying. That… doesn’t usually constitute as okay.” She offered a half smile, concern still taking up the majority of her expression.  
    “No, I’m fine,” she answered. She really didn’t need to have this conversation right now.  
    The blonde took her wife’s entire state in, before loosing a suspicious “Callie…”   
    She hated it when she used the same tone of voice on her as they did on Sofia. This wasn’t the same as their daughter withholding a broken toy. This was so much more complicated than that. She rolled her eyes and said, “Really, it’s all good. I just found the video from our wedding and…”  
    “Oh,” Arizona said. She propped herself against the wall with a sigh.   
    Taking cues from her wife, she sat down on the edge of the tub with a defeated “Yeah.”  
    The blonde’s hand moved instinctively to her face, rubbing the bridge of her nose. This wasn’t something she was ready to deal with tonight. Still, she couldn’t abandon hope that maybe it wasn’t what she thought. “Why is that a reason for you to be stealing the shower’s thunder?” she asked.  
    But she knew the answer. Of course she did. Still, Callie obliged, “Mark.”   
    Mark. One four letter name. She didn’t say it much anymore, but she still felt him everywhere. Sofia was becoming so much like him. She could see bits of him in Derek, even though they were wildly different. It seemed to her like it was taking forever to move past it. But part of her didn’t even want to. If she held on to this sadness, she could hold on to him.  
    It landed on Arizona like a punch to the gut. “Oh,” was all she could manage, blinking slowly.  
    “Yeah.” Callie pursed her lips, bracing herself for the storm she knew was coming.  
    She turned to leave, “Is that it?” Not now. Don’t do this now.  
    Letting her filter drop for just a moment, she asked, “Is that not enough?” Instantly, she regretted it. She knew she should have just let it go.  
    Her voice dropped back a bit, “It’s two years, Callie.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in, letting it out slowly. She’d been trying so hard to not lose her cool when Callie made it seem like the last couple of years had been hard on her. She couldn’t even begin to tell her how hard they’d really been, but she knew it would start another fight and she didn’t want that.  
    This had gone on long enough. She couldn’t swallow her feelings anymore. She had been treading so lightly around Arizona since the accident. Everything seemed to upset her. Callie had tried her best to understand, but, of late, trying to talk to Arizona was like trying to get water from a stone. Instead of telling her what was wrong, she’d snap. Even if nothing was wrong, it became a problem. It had become easier for Callie to take care of everyone else instead of adding her own feelings to the pile.  
    Against her better judgement, she said plainly, “He was my best friend and the father of our child.”   
    And there it was. The unspoken cloud that hung over Arizona’s head. “Oh, I know that. The father of our child bit, at least.” She knew what it meant. Her wife was going to leave her because she couldn’t get over her ex. Her ex that they had all tried so hard to save. Her male ex.  
    And why shouldn’t she leave? She was gorgeous and successful and _whole_. Anyone in their right mind would be lucky to have her. But Arizona wasn’t. Arizona didn’t have her. She couldn’t help but wonder if she ever really did, or ever really would. It sure didn’t feel like it. Especially when she knew that Callie deserved someone who didn't have her baggage. She knew it. Callie knew it. The other parents at Sofia’s daycare knew it. Hell, the girl who served them their coffee in the morning knew it. But still she stayed. And it was all Arizona could do to guard herself for the final blow she knew was coming.  
    Callie was taken aback. She hadn’t been expecting that to be the big offense. “Are you kidding me with this?” She stood up, toying with her necklace instead of reaching for Arizona’s hand. “After everything that’s happened, are you really going to…”  
    “Everything that’s happened? Yeah.” Arizona scoffed. “Everything that’s happened.” Her head lolled backwards a bit as she bit her lip, trying to think of a more delicate way to phrase what this all boiled back to. “After everything that’s happened, the fact that you slept with Mark still hurts.”   
    The pair stood in shared silence for a moment. “We weren’t together when I slept with Mark, Arizona!” Callie echoed arguments past. “Besides, if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have Sofia. In my mind, that makes the whole thing worth it. ” Her tone grew snipped and dry. She was tired of having the same fights all the time. If they couldn’t move past this, what was the point of staying together? “No matter how many times you try to force the issue, I’ll never regret that. I’ll never regret anything about…”

    “Anything? Anything?!” Arizona cut across her, temper flaring. “I don’t know. I think there’s quite a bit to regret there. I don’t know how long I can play like it doesn’t bother me.”  
    “You’ve never played like it doesn’t bother you! Not once. Not even a little bit.” Callie couldn’t wrap her mind around it. How was this the blaring imperfection on the top of their relationship? She covered her face in her hands. “And it’s not like…”  
    Interrupting her again, she asked, “Not like what? Like it should matter to me? It does, Callie.”   
    “If you would let me finish a sentence, what I was going to say was ‘It’s not like it’ll ever happen again.’”  
    “But you’d like for it to, wouldn’t you?” Arizona plowed past the point of Callie’s argument, effectively derailing her train of thought and speeding off on her own. “You just wish it had been me that died on the plane instead, don’t you?! Then, you could live your perfect little high powered, straight fantasy life and you wouldn’t have to deal with your sad, handicapped, lesbian wife and maybe then you wouldn’t feel so sorry for yourself about your mother not talking to you.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. That was horrible and she knew it.  
    Callie swallowed hard, thoughts racing. Did Arizona really think that lowly of her that she thought that that was true?  Or that any of that was fair?  It was one thing for her to think all of her own negative thoughts, but this... this was cruel and totally unreasonable.  All bets were off now. It was far past time for her to get it off her chest.  
    “Are you kidding me with that load of garbage?” She licked her lips and waited for an interruption that didn’t come. She shook her head, with a heartless laugh. “What does any of that have to do with me missing Mark?” She gave a gesture that was supposed to mean let me have it, but was met with stunned silence. “Oh, you’re all quiet now aren’t you? Did you let all of what you said sink in? Realize that maybe you’re projecting a bit?”   
    “Callie, I-” Arizona started, not sure where she was going.  
    It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to hear it anyway. “No. You’re done talking for a while. It’s my turn. Uninterrupted.” She paced a bit. Arizona closed the lid to the toilet with a click and sat on it, waiting for the fury she had unleashed, ready to take her lashes as they came.  The most terrifying part was that Callie almost looked like she was amused.  She watched her wife as she moved back and forth, biting down on her lips and looking everywhere but at Arizona.  When their eyes finally met, her breath stilled in her chest.  'If looks could kill' had always seemed like a stupid turn of phrase to her, but in that moment, she experienced it in full force and understood that it's not the look that kills.  It's the feeling you get between the moment and the oncoming storm.  That's the killer.  “You walked in here and found me crying. I was trying to hide it because I know how my feelings about Mark end up.” She took a deep breath. “I know how they always have and how they probably always will. And, do you know what? In some part of my mind, I’ve accepted that.” She shook her head again, wondering when she’d sopped putting herself in the equation. She had once loved so strongly and fought so passionately found herself cowering from a fight and hiding her own signs of emotions. “I almost have myself believing that it bothers you so much because you love me that fiercely. That and the fact that you held him for days. You two kept each other holding on.” She’d heard the stories over and over. They operated on him with nothing. She was screaming and crying. He kept fading in and out. It sounded horrifying. She knew it had been. She wished there was something she could do to make that better, but yet there wasn’t. All she could do was help where she could. “So, I’m sure thinking about him puts you right back in those woods. And that hurts. And I’m sorry.” She really was. She was sorry about the whole thing. Absolutely helplessly sorry. But that wasn’t a fair thing to be. It wasn’t her fault “I’m sorry a thousand times over. But your feelings are not more important than mine. You cannot expect me to glaze over all of my feelings forever.”   
    She closed her eyes and smiled sadly. “I. Miss. Mark.” It felt good to finally say the words. “I miss him. I probably always will. And do you know what?” She took one last breath and said the words she’d been so scared to say for so long. “The woman I married DID die in that plane crash.” The shock on Arizona’s face spoke volumes. She was getting somewhere. Now was no time to stop. “The woman I married smiled. The woman I married cared. The woman I married would never have cheated on me.”   
    Arizona’s face fell. Callie was right, and she knew it. She was different. They both were, but did that really mean that to walk on broken glass to coexist with one another?  Should either of them settle for merely coexisting?  They deserved more than that, didn’t they?  
    “That’s right. I said it,” she continued, seeing the wheels in her wife’s head turning. She knelt at her feet, placing her hands on her lap, looking directly in her eyes. “So, no. No, Arizona, I do not wish you had died on that plane.” She stood up again and paced a bit more. “But on some level, you and I both know that you did.” Arizona stared at her wife, unable to form a sentence for the first time in her life. “Because the Arizona I married would not have found me lying on the ground crying and tried to make me feel worse.” She turned back to her. “She wouldn’t have proceeded to scream at me and turn it into a pity party for herself.” Her lips pulled taut, she rolled her eyes. “She would have held me. She would have kissed me. She would have done anything she could to try to help me.” She realeased a tired sigh, shaking her head. “The Arizona I married would never have intentionally made someone- anyone feel worse to make herself feel better.”   
    The pair stared at each other for a moment, before Callie turned on her heel and walked out of the room. A few minutes later, Arizona heard a few doors and drawers slam. The door to the baby’s room. It wasn’t until she heard the front door and the car start and knew that they were gone. Her family was gone and she hadn’t done a thing to stop them.   
    She stood up and walked around the house on autopilot, not sure what to do next.

-

    The following morning, Arizona woke up to a red notification light on her phone.  
    “(1) Unread Message: Callie - The Arizona I married would never have let me walk out that door.”


End file.
